When Your Racism Isn’t

I don’t think I need to relay just how obsessed the Left has become with racism. By every account, they’ve elected themselves as the chief bulwark against it, decrying it everywhere they can find it and ruining the lives of its adherents. Thing is though, they’re hardly finding any racism let alone fighting it. Why? Well, the definition of racism by the Left has become so expanded that any understanding of race outside of its use as skin toner has been labeled as such. So should you attribute any characteristics to one’s race, even in the general sense, you earn the label of ‘racist’.

Now, I imagine that there are some of you reading this right now who think that this is actually just or fair. You’re wrong. You’re wrong because to use a category like race, or any category at all, is necessarily a result of crafting some distinction. There’s something different between whites and blacks and Hispanics, etc. Hence the different categories. Well obviously, right? But where this becomes an issue, is a matter of reason and ultimately of language itself.

Categorization: What is How it is

See, if something is distinguished from something else, than there is some effect that it creates that another does not. In other words, it produces some outcome that is particular to it. Then based on that outcome, we develop expectations and intentions for it. We expect it to do this or that and so intend for ourselves to do this or that in response. This method of understanding things, call it a quirk, is a function of our own ability to reason. We understand everything, and I mean everything, through interaction. What something is, is always how it is. We know it by what it does to maintain itself as itself and also what it does to the rest of reality in that effort. So a rock remains a rock and as such, we’re want to avoid tripping over it or eating it. Water flows and soaks our clothes, so we’re want to get out of the path of a raging flood. Especially if we’re wearing something nice. It all sounds like something obvious and trite, but it’s nevertheless how our minds work. So that said, what does ‘black’ do? How does it maintain itself and how does it effect reality in doing so? What do you expect and intend of it? How do you deem to interact with it differently based on the distinction you made for it? In other words, what are its characteristics?

You’ve already distinguished ‘black’ so by dint of that, you’ve crafted some particular expectation and intention for it. So, what are they and for that matter, what characteristics of ‘black’ warrant these expectations and intentions? It’s not an easy question to answer, especially if you don’t consider yourself racist by Leftist definition. Furthermore, claiming, “I just don’t have any,” doesn’t jive with your own method of understanding the world. Your mind doesn’t just stop functioning properly with regard to matters of race. So you’re either in denial or ignorant of your standard for makes black ‘black’ or white ‘white’ and so what you do in response. So that said, everyone is racist by Leftist definition and as such, this sort of racism can only be graded by magnitude as opposed to some special quality. In other words, everyone is racist but not everyone is equal in their racism. Or so the Leftist will tell you. This is actually quite stupid and speaks more to their authoritative leanings. Basically, once you claim someone’s racism worse than your own, you have to start making qualitative assessments of racism: evaluating the behavior according to your own values. It’s no different than claiming that while everyone likes pizza, you like pizza the most and they the least, since you prefer double-cheese whilst they have the audacity to put pineapple on theirs. Sure, you can make a qualitative assessment of their use of violence, as in whether they engage in it or not and even whether they kill people or not. But that doesn’t make them any more or less racist than yourself. One could just as easily kill another simply due to the shape of their nose rather than any sense of supremacy or personal threat.

So in case you were wondering why the Left makes everyone out to be racist and draws an equivalency between innocuous racial ‘transgressions’ and racial violence itself well, there you go.

Leftist ‘Racism’: The Denigration of Standardization

Alright then. So, are we really all racist? Yes, by Leftist definition. But hang on a minute. That sort of racism is just a natural consequence of how our minds work. Furthermore, if it’s a universal characteristic of man, then why does the Left not hold everyone equally accountable for it? This is where we see the oft-cited, ‘Racism equals prejudice plus power.’ This is a result of the relationship to one’s beliefs that (Authoritarian) Leftism generates. It requires a victim/perpetrator dynamic for literally everything that they define. So instead of ‘black’ being distinguished by the distinct characteristics it possesses and the particular outcomes those produce, all of that is attributed to some external actor instead. In other words, ‘black’ is the result of what others do to it through their interactions with it. ‘Black’ produces no effects on its own and with that, some external actor is responsible for everything that they perceive blacks to be. This invariably translates into this external actor (whites) being responsible for everything that blacks actually do. Quite literally, within this paradigm your interpretation of the actions of a group are treated as the impetus to those actions. And all you had to do to create this insanity was disrupt the means through which we categorize things in our minds. No brow-beating, no moral panic, no propagandizing. Just screw around with our language a little and presto!

Though credit to the Leftist, and I mean that very loosely, is that this is all kinda true – in a sense. Why? Well, because everything we categorize does exist by virtue of our ability to attribute some distinct outcome to it. So we do craft for ourselves what ‘black’ means; we’re responsible for that perspective. Though realistically, and I mean that literally, we still base the categorization of ‘black’ based on its effects in reality. So while our interpretation of ‘black’ is subjective, it’s based on some objective criteria. So it’s hardly crafted from whole cloth or anything necessarily wrong nor entirely subjective. As I’ve made the case for prior, all of this just reveals that the Leftist’s opposition to ‘racism’ is actually their opposition to defining something based on its particular effects/outcomes. This is why this behavior isn’t particular to matters of race but also sex, sexuality, ability, even rank matters of personal preference. Therefore, the Leftist actually resists standardization itself.

See how easy it is to create Leftist ideology through language alone, without all the hang-ups of what these terms actually mean in reality? You’ll need to get used to that, because how these terms, how these things operate in reality, is irrelevant. The Left only references reality as a means of ex post facto justification for their corruption of language. Their ideology doesn’t operate within reality but imposed upon it. If you’ve ever wondered why they seem so irrational and impossible to debate well, their language itself has been screwed up. Until you understand how it’s been retooled in their own minds, you’re speaking different languages.

It should come at no surprise now that I don’t believe that any of this is racist. With that, I absolutely reject the Left’s bastardization of the term. I mean honestly, since their definition of racism is actually their opposition to standardization masquerading as some moral concern, they’ve gotten to the point where it is ‘racist not to date blacks’ or ‘racist to only date whites’. Their resistance to standardization has naturally spilled over into matters of preference itself, since preference too is fundamentally based on what effects/outcomes you expect of, or intend for, something or someone. Again, here you would find Rightists squabbling over the hypocrisy and double standards of the Left and their creeping tyranny, when this is just a wholesale resistance to the practice of standardization itself. Simple.

Reconciling Matters: Can the Real Leftist please Stand(ard) Up?

Now, I’d like to offer an olive branch to my Leftist kin who are especially sensitive to this matter. I don’t necessarily mean racism, but rather the attribution of characteristics to yourself based on things like race, sex, etc. This can often times be as flattering as it is demeaning, and all as a matter of presumption. Truly, the issue – the principle is that no one should presume anything about you. It’s necessarily an unfair judgment on their part and, in existing prior to any investigation of your character, is the very definition of prejudice. However, such presumption is necessary to navigating life. The same way you would presume of a rock or a wall everything you assume of it, everything you believe it does and will do, you presume of people too. If you didn’t, everything you did would be vastly impeded. You’d be checking the structural integrity of the walls in every building before entering. You’d be checking every rock to ensure that it wasn’t a radioactive meteorite. And finally, you’d be checking everyone’s personal pronouns before you deign to address them. On principle, it’s all the same sort of ridiculousness. You may certainly view it as a matter of courtesy and that’s your prerogative, but it doesn’t translate into anything to impose on others, no more than you would insist that they check the walls in their homes and rocks on their lawn before you step foot on their property.

Should you wonder, there are hundreds if not thousands of presumptions that we all make about each other all the time. We’ve already crafted a working model of interaction such that we can all share particular expectations and intentions for each other. This has allowed us to speed up our interactions by providing norms as well as checks and balances to matters both of offense and courtesy. This model of interaction is simply known as culture. So please stop eroding it blindly without any sense of what it is you’re doing.

When Racism Isn’t: ‘Blacks are Dumb’ and other Truisms

So it is that with matters of presumption in mind, we can address what is, or rather is not racism. Since this matter of presumption is fundamentally based on your categorization of some term, again say ‘black’, and it manifests in your actions as expectations and intentions, it’s all a matter of hope and prediction really. When you set out to interact with something, you’re necessarily predicting what will occur and, insofar as you’re doing something you want to do, you’ve hope that it will turn out how you expect it to. There isn’t any malicious content to be had in this sort of activity. There’s nothing right nor wrong about the psychological process of prediction, no. You’d have to make the subsequent action a malicious one in order to do that. So why do people get so irritated over this? Well once again, it’s all a matter of interpretation and the victim/oppressor dynamic endemic to the Left. Though more particularly, it’s a result of their insistence on defining themselves by some external actor, some ‘other’.

In short, whenever a Leftist hears someone claim that ‘blacks are dumb’ they create in their minds a direct equation as opposed to a simple relation. What I mean is that they assume ‘blackness is equal to dumbness’ as per this gentleman’s claim, rather than assuming that they just aren’t unrelated. I mean honestly, I’m white as a ghost and I’m also dumb. Furthermore, ‘dumb’ isn’t some sweeping claim that encompasses the entirety of my being, no. Nothing works like that, save in the absolutism of ideological thinking. Instead, I am both a white person and I am dumb. So I can say in all confidence that ‘whites are dumb’. Why? Because I am and so they are. I don’t hold my whiteness responsible for dumbness, but neither do I entirely exclude them from any relation at all. So to that point, I’m also a man. Ergo, ‘men are dumb’ as well. See how this actually works?

So unfortunately for how the Leftist understands the claim, insofar as you’re black, you’re dumb. Period. Yet again, it isn’t what’s being said – not really. Only someone who’s near as ideologically-aligned as the Leftist would assume, no matter what and no matter what they see to the contrary, that ‘all blacks are dumb’. You simply can’t park Thomas Sowell in front of a so-called racist and have them earnestly believe that Sowell is a dumb man. Do you know how I know? It’s because even a devout, self-proclaimed racist has standards for his denigrations. If you meet his standard for smarts, he’ll see it. If you meet his standard for beauty, he’ll see it. It’s only in denying standardization itself that he could yet claim someone like Sowell to be definitively, unequivocally dumb. So he’d have to become a Leftist, in other words. It’s a Catch 22, honestly. Thus, the only real way for someone to truly be racist is the infusion of the notion of supremacy. He would need to assume supremacy irrespective of whether another race exceeds his own standards. So he’d have to deny his own standards as opposed to holding others to them. That’s when racism becomes truly irrational rather than merely presumptive and when it becomes oppressive as opposed to merely preferential.

To finish up, what then is meant by the claim ‘blacks are dumb’? Again, it’s merely the claim that they aren’t unrelated. But more to the point, this individual is only communicating where he will place the blame for a black man’s display of dumbness. So, should he be conversing with one Thomas Sowell, engrossed in his economic wisdom and verbal flair, only to observe Sowell lean back in his chair and fall over, this man will attribute Sowell’s folly to his being black. Should Sowell dust himself off and tell a rousing tale of some foolish and foolhardy behavior of his past, that man will once again attribute his dumbness to his being black. That’s all this is. This sort of ‘racism’ isn’t the attribution of some perpetual outcome and so state of being to your race. Like being dumb no matter what you do, no. Rather, it’s a communication of how they will interpret the origin of that outcome if and when you produce it. Someone could just as easily attribute Sowell’s dumbness to his political position, his sex, his culture, anything and everything. Such is the necessary and inevitable nature of attribution as a result of interpretation.

Hidden Origins: How Denying your ‘Racism’ creates Leftism

Understand that you can’t rob yourself of this process. You can only deny what assumptions are produced through it, which only serves to erode your own interpretation of basically anything and everything, rendering your individuality defunct. Basically, the only thing you will end up doing is denying every idea that pops into your head as to the source of one’s dumbness, as per this example. And honestly, pray tell, what exactly is the correct source of their dumbness? Who is gifted the wisdom of the ages, whose discernment knows no boundary and so attributes with perfect precision that which has originated the dumb? Nobody, so stop beating yourselves up about your ‘racism’ and for those who accuse it of others, stop it. Unless it’s a blind supremacism, which is alone the actual issue, then drop it. Stop trying to exclude your race or sex or whatever from the source of any other characteristic you just might have. In the end, you’ll exclude it from everything and become a Leftist whose definition of race and eventually self is contingent on how others effect it, rather than how you effect yourself. Again as covered in ‘Political Mad Libs‘, in defining yourself by how others interact with you rather than how you interact with them, your identity is only ever a matter of their responsibility and so you a victim of it and thus a victim of them.

The Actual Issue in Real Racism: It’s the Supremacy, Stupid!

In conclusion, without blind supremacism interjected into the concept of race, so-called ‘racism’ is just a result of a necessary presumption we all must make with regard to everyone and everything. Furthermore, any direct attribution of characteristics to race, like ‘whites are degenerate’, is just a lens through which the degeneracy of whites will be interpreted. In other words, when a white person does something degenerate, it will be attributed to their race as opposed to something else. It could just as easily be sourced in a white person’s religion, culture, sex, job, taste in music, sexual orientation, anything and everything. Yet while we recognize that none of these are necessarily to blame for a white person’s degeneracy, they are absolutely not and never will be utterly exclusionary. In other words, we’re in no position to claim that whiteness has nothing whatsoever to do with degeneracy or that blackness has nothing whatsoever to do with dumbness or that femaleness has nothing whatsoever to do with weakness, etc. It’s here we find another nugget of wisdom from Ye Olde Bible. The idea that we’re all sinners, that we’re all bad, evil, stupid, arrogant, and violent, is very much able to humble ourselves whenever we’re met with such accusations because frankly, we are such things – it’s true. But then again, so is everyone else.

We’d all do better to take such denigrations as reminders instead of insults.

The Post-Modern Disease

One Comment

“I don’t think I need to relay just how obsessed the Left has become with racism. By every account, they’ve elected themselves as the chief bulwark against it, decrying it everywhere they can find it and ruining the lives of its adherents.”

“Racism” has become the political left’s version of McCarthyism. I refer to it as “neo-McCarthyism”.